Help Me Choose: Graphics

"Graphics" refers to how your PC handles data that is translated (or rendered) into the images that appear on your display. Everything you see on your display requires some amount of graphics processing. Therefore, every Dell system starts with some amount of native graphics capability.

Integrated graphics means the system uses the main CPU and system memory — along with specialized graphics built in to the CPU motherboard — to handle graphics.

A graphics card is add-on hardware dedicated to rendering graphics. The key component of a graphics card is a graphics processing unit or GPU. Instead of relying on the system processor to render graphics, the graphics card offloads that work to the GPU. A graphics card will also have additional memory dedicated solely to the GPU.

Typically, a system with a dedicated graphics card can render images faster, and with greater detail and nuance than a comparable system with integrated graphics. A system with a dedicated graphics card can also typically deliver better all-around performance, because less of the CPU and system memory may be required to handle graphics.